Year of big change, but more is needed

AND so here we are, at the end of an eventful year, one that changed the course of our history in more ways than we are able to appreciate yet. President Jacob Zuma may not have fallen this week, but he is certainly in a much weaker position than he was, politically, at the start of the year. Today he presides over a much changed country, one whose civil society is growing in its confidence to say “Not in our name” when things go wrong.

If he had thought that his success last year in winning a second term as head of state meant that he could now do as he wished, with no regard for other opinions and sometimes not for laws either, 2015 taught him that the citizens’ demand for accountability is not limited to the ballot box.

The events of the past two weeks, sparked by Zuma’s overreach in firing Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister and replacing him with a relatively unknown backbencher, have strengthened the hands of those, inside and outside government, who want to see our country succeed.

That Zuma had to make a dramatic U-turn in his decision and appoint the highly respected Pravin Gordhan — who held the post before Nene’s appointment last year — marked a significant change in the country’s political balance of forces.

After years of worrying signs that the National Treasury had become the target of dark forces seeking to abuse it and to enrich the purveyors and their cronies, Gordhan’s reappointment signifies a defeat for such forces.

Gordhan, and any other finance minister who comes after him, will now be one of the most powerful people in the cabinet whose views a head of state will be unable to easily dismiss.

They should use their power for the benefit of the country.

The first step towards doing so is for Gordhan to use his authority and power to turn around cash-burning state-owned enterprises such as SAA.

The management of state-owned enterprises has long been singled out as the main threat to the South African fiscus, with the focus being on Eskom and its need for a major recapitalisation.

Just how this recapitalisation would be accomplished in an environment of slow economic growth was always going to be the test for policymakers. For the main part, the jury is still out on how the state has done in solving the energy shortfall.

But the most immediate challenge, which Gordhan and the Treasury will have to prioritise, has to be the troubled SAA.

The former minister’s stance on the creaking airline and its less than frugal chairwoman, Dudu Myeni, is exactly what has been needed by a government still struggling to raise revenue.

Although this stance is directly to blame for Nene’s axing, the same cannot befall Gordhan and he should therefore use his “untouchable” status to push ahead with Nene’s plans for the airline. These include removing Myeni and appointing competent people to the SAA board.

If South Africa is to reclaim any of its fiscal credibility at a time of low growth and revenues, this is an approach that Gordhan should cement.

He would send a strong message to the markets, the citizens as well as the politicians if he were to ensure that SAA met the deadline set by Nene to honour its existing agreement with Airbus by Monday and save the country R1.5-billion it does not have.